MISTAKE 1: Not having a defined strategy for ecommerce
On each website, each sector and each type of business, different SEO strategies need to be applied.
An SEO strategy for a media outlet is not the same as for an online store or for any other type of website.
That's why it's important to create a tailored strategy for each type of website, and in this case we're going to talk about ecommerce (online stores).
Before starting to manage a project, it's very important to create a roadmap with the full strategy defined.
It's all very well having a website online, selling online and being visible, butt…
That's useless if we don't use strategies to attract traffic that converts into customers on our website!
So, to create a good strategy and a good action map, we'll need to know the project and the sector we're getting into very well to create the best tailored SEO strategy.
MISTAKE 2: Ignoring user experience and WPO
One of the most important SEO factors today when ranking in Google is user experience.
Google heavily prioritizes the experience a user has from the moment they enter until they leave our website, since it wants to show the best option as results for users.
So, if our website doesn't have a good user experience, it's most likely it won't rank as well as if it had one.
What's more, it's not just about having a good user experience to rank in Google; it's even more important to have one so the user feels comfortable on our website and takes the action or goal we want (for example, buying a product).
I've come across many cases of online stores that haven't had a good user experience and have lost sales as a result.
MISTAKE 3: Misuse of the canonical tag
I don't hate canonicals, but to be honest, Google does whatever it wants regardless of what you tell it in the canonicals.
That happens because a canonical is not a directive but a suggestion, which is why Google can take the suggestion correctly and follow it, although normally it doesn't pay any attention to the suggestion and does whatever it wants.
Thanks Google, you're already starting to resemble my cat, you only listen to me when it suits you.
Many people confuse the use of canonicals and use them incorrectly, so it's very important to understand the operation of canonicals and the algorithmic function they have very well.
A point in favor (or against) of canonicals is that Google can read absolutely all the content even if it has a canonical pointing to the canonical page; however, if we block it via robots.txt, Google could not see or enter all these pages and that it doesn't like at all.
MISTAKE 4: Poor content in product descriptions
This mistake is fairly common in most online stores.
You have to understand that Google relies mainly on content and keywords to rank that page. If this page has no content, it has no keywords either, and if it has no keywords, it won't rank organically.
If an indexable page has fewer than 350 words, it's considered thin content.
Thin content is penalized by Google in many cases.
If 1% of your website's total pages have thin content, nothing will happen. However, if more than 40% of our website's total pages have fewer than 350 words each, Google's algorithm will likely penalize us.
It's true that Google is getting smarter and realizes that a website with a million products can hardly write a text larger than 350 words for each product sheet; the logical thing would be for it not to pay attention to thin content in this kind of cases.
If your ecommerce has lots of products and you can't write text for each product, I recommend basing the strategy on creating content for the product categories instead of for each product sheet.
MISTAKE 5: Not using microformats or snippets
Microformats and snippets are code fragments that the more advanced SEOs use to give Google certain information about the page it's processing.
When you start an ecommerce or an online store, you usually don't take this kind of ranking factor into account.
My recommendation is to start implementing them as soon as possible since it's a point of differentiation against the competition that can make you rank above them.
MISTAKE 6: Deleting URLs when there are better options
Many people make the mistake of deleting URLs from a website when those URLs are actually very important.
A URL is important when it brings traffic or has internal or external links since it'll be a great source of crawling.
Before deleting a URL, think of other methods to avoid losing all these benefits.
You can create a redirect, use the canonical tag and/or perform certain SEO actions without negatively affecting the SEO of the page in question.
MISTAKE 7: Having content that adds nothing
Having content that adds no value and having nothing is exactly the same both for the user and for Google.
Texts are one of the most important parts of a website both for the user and for Google.
For the user they are very important when deciding whether to buy a product or not and for Google they're the main ranking factor.
It's important for the website content to be unique, original, add value, of quality and at the same time be well optimized for search engines.
That's why in many cases it's recommended to hire a professional SEO copywriter who achieves all these milestones.
And if you want to try it yourself, I'm leaving you a blog where I show you how to do it perfectly.
Related reading
- How to index your website in Google
- Ranking in Google: technique, content and authority
- Best SEO agency: real criteria
Shall we work together?
If you want to apply this in your company with a team that combines technical SEO, GEO and paid acquisition measured against the income statement, request a no-commitment audit. You can also check real case studies or read the public GEO baselines that Elevam Labs publishes every quarter.
